COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

"In the future, everyone will have access to VA health care for fifteen minutes."

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Had to get a PC for work.

I had to have a PC that would run our gee-whiz proprietary illustration and analysis software and our super-secret, high-speed, low-drag, 100mph encryption system. I got a Toshiba Satellite L-355D-S7815. I got a nice big screen so if I have to show something to senior citizens it's nice and friendly.

And I hate Windows Vista with the intensity of a thousand suns.

It lasted me all of 2 and a half weeks before I had a catastrophic boot-up failure. Nice.

It seems to be working after I spent all morning blowing out files and reinstalling it, so it's a Windows problem, rather than a hardware problem it seems. (I'll have to turn over my computer all day tomorrow for the company to install the secret-squirrel encryption software that protects client data and reinstall the illustration software. So I'll lose a day and a half of productivity on it.).

Even before the crash, though, Vista is slow, stupid, clunky, and does not translate well from Windows XP, which I was familiar with.

Furthermore, I had to go in and rename DLL files in order to get a copy of Office 2003 to work, and it's still not supporting Outlook's export feature fully.

Vista blows chunks. It's f*cked up like a soup sandwich in a chicken wire bowl.

I support a large corp environment of WinXP based machines and support Vista for friends and family. You have a bigger problem with your laptop if you needed to “go in and rename DLL files in order to get a copy of Office 2003 to work”. Drop me a line and I’ll point you is right direction to help sort it out if you’d like.

I think I already know the answer to this… but why don’t you use your MacBook Pro with Boot Camp?

I’m not a big fan of Vista, I only have it running on my main laptop because it was given to me for free at a Microsoft conference this past March. I was actually given 2 32bit copies and 1 64bit, but see no reason to have it other then when someone calls me about Vista I have something to test against.

I'd wager to say that the "IT goons" can't downgrade him to XP since it sounds like it's a personally owned machine. If Jason was still with in his 30 day return time frame I would recommend (assuming he can't use Boot Camp on his Mac) to return it and order a Dell (or maybe HP) with WinXP preloaded and a Vista license. Dell is still doing this if you order though they're Small Business site. I would wager the HP is doing this as well, but haven’t checked into it, since most people I help buy for don’t want to pay the extra money for an HP.

That's terrific information! Thanks. I don't think using Boot Camp on a Mac is in the cards, because the problem isn't just getting our proprietary software to work on OSX... but also supporting a specific encryption system. The Macs are great for the marketing/journalism industry, where the only sensitive information there belongs to the company, and the only thing an information compromise could lead to is perhaps a temporary competitive disadvantage should a competitor find, say, my pricing information.

In this case, though, since I'm in the financial services industry, my computer will also have to potentially store, at least temporarily, sensitive financial and medical information belonging to clients and prospects. Whole different ball of wax. And if we let that information out of the bag, there could be massive FTC fines, insurance commission sanctions, dogs and cats living together....mass hysteria!

There's a safe harbor, though, if I use a strong enough encryption system to lock bad guys out of the hard drive and OS. My understanding is that the PC supports the officially approved encryption, the Mac does not.

I love the XP3 environment, except for the boot up and shutdown times. And that's a possibility as well. Maybe I can import the license from an old computer, if Vista continues to cause me grief.

Vista is the New Coke of the computer world. I hope MSFT has the wherewithal to go back to basics and create a whole new animal. I guess they painted themselves into a corner, though, having to support all these legacy apps!

Dave, I’m sure you’re correct the Microsoft is working on its replacement for Vista, I don’t think “Mojave” is it.

WinXP SP2 (and maybe SP3, haven’t loaded it yet) is over all a very stable OS, but it is showing its age. Is it as stable as OSX… no, it isn’t, some of that is due to Apple learning from Microsoft how not to do thing (since the mid 80’s), Apple using a Unix kernel, and most importantly (in my opinion) Apple limiting the hardware OS X is installed on, as well as limiting the amount of backwards compatibility.

I’ve used OS X, and really don’t like the interface, so I would never use one, but working with a lot of people with varying computer experience and skill I can see why a lot of people like it.

If Apple really wanted to compete with Microsoft they should decide they’re a software company and offer OS X for use with non Apple machines. Despite the pressure Microsoft is feeling with the lack of sales from Vista, I still don’t think it’s enough to get Microsoft to put out as good a product as if they had real competition from another company with deep pockets. Unfortunately this late in the game I don’t think there is a company with a product that is mature enough other then Apple. The other issue that Apple faces is providing a productivity suite that competes with Microsoft Office, with most of the features of Office and would work with existing Office files.

I think IBM is trying to do this as seen here, but I seem to recall that this has been something Big Blue has tried before.

Anyway, now that I’ve taken this WAY off Jason’s target of “Stupid Vista”, I’ll go hide in the corner with the other IT goons ;)

1 - Apple is a hardware company that happens to also make very good software to run on the hardware, from iPods to Mac Pros.

2 - If Apple didn't sell that hardware, they couldn't afford to make the software; sales wouldn't be anywhere close to enough to pay for it.

3 - Offering OS X for J.Random PC hardware would be a mug's game, at best. It's hard enough to get your OS and applications to work well and reliably if you control the hardware on which it runs. If you don't control that hardware, well, even MS has problems with that issue.

Apple chose a long time ago to not compete directly with MS, and it's worked out very well for them.

You correct that Apple offering OSX for Joe Six Pack's PC isn't an original idea.

It most certainly could work, but would require some risk on Apple's part that up to now they have been unwilling to make.

1 - Apple is a hardware company that happens to also make very good software to run on the hardware, from iPods to Mac Pros.

Apple isn't really a hardware company anymore. They're not building Macs from "scratch" anymore with Motorola processors, NuBus connectors, and Apple Talk. Apple is letting Intel design the vast majority of the hardware, allowing Apple to focus on the software and styling of the Mac.

2 - If Apple didn't sell that hardware, they couldn't afford to make the software; sales wouldn't be anywhere close to enough to pay for it.

I think your confusing Hardware and Consumer Electronics. An iPod isn't hardware, it is a Consumer Electronic device. Apple will continue to sell iPods wither they stop selling Apple branded computers or not. If Apple started to offer OSX outside of they're own hardware, I would wager (and so would Apple, hence the risk) that the profit made from the OS sales would far exceed the lose in Hardware sales. Some of difference could be made up in the initial cost of the OSX purchase. Current MSRP for OSX Ver 10.5.1 is $129.99, this is really an upgrade price like what Microsoft does when you have Windows XP and want Windows Vista since you really can't buy a "bare bones" make like you can a PC. There isn't any reason Apple couldn't price a "non-upgrade" price like Windows Vista Home Premium for $269 if you didn't buy Apple hardware.

3 - Offering OS X for J.Random PC hardware would be a mug's game, at best. It's hard enough to get your OS and applications to work well and reliably if you control the hardware on which it runs. If you don't control that hardware, well, even MS has problems with that issue.3. Here you are correct, and that's the rub for Apple. They could reduce that risk by only supporting hardware with Extensible Firmware Interface support, maybe requiring that vendors certify with Apple that they're Firmware meets Apple's requirements for OSX support. Apple would then be able to limit the age of the machines supported, or even allow only new machines.

I don't think I or anyone else said that offering OSX outside Apple hardware would be easy, but there are solutions to the problems involved. Prior to 2005 it was said that the Intel hardware couldn't handle the demands of the Mac OS. Apple is a very creative company, the primary problem is Steve Jobs, until he leaves Apple, this is only a pipe dream.

Apple chose a long time ago to not compete directly with MS, and it's worked out very well for them.

I don't think Apple "chose" "not to compete" with Microsoft as much as Microsoft was able to license an affordable product to IBM, who in turn was able to get that product into enough businesses that othercompanies decided try to clone that success. Had Steve Jobs and Apple had such a simple choice, they would have chosen to be in Microsoft place. Truth be told without companies like Compaq, HP, IBM and Dell, Microsoft wouldn't be in the place they are today. Steve Jobs does again have that choice, but it isn't any more simple now then it was then.

I use Vista 64-bit and I'm liking it. The only coplaint I have is that my Visolve toolbar won't work. I'm a Wintel admin and we'll be starting to use Server 2008 soon--which is Vista for servers. So it was in my interst to start figuring it out.

The problems I see is that MS chose to change too mcuh all at once. Leaves users dazed and eventually frustrated.

But that renaming dlls to get office to work? That's a symptom of a bigger problem as has been stated. Are you on 32-bit or 64-bit?